Hillary Clinton says election defeat left her 'gobsmacked'

This week, Clinton is scheduled to appear on ABC's "The View" and the popular center-left podcast "Pod Save America", and she will attend a book signing in NY.

But Clinton also revealed how she felt attending Trump's inauguration speech - in keeping with former First Lady protocol - and it wasn't pleasant.

Sanders repeatedly attacked her as a representative of the political establishment, a message Trump echoed.

Clinton said she had no idea what the outcome would be heading into Election Day.

"Not even after the director of the FBI, James Comey cleared her any criminal charges ... while adding a post script that stuck, " Pauley bemoaned, before playing a clip of Comey telling the public that Clinton and her team played fast and loose with classified information.

Today's interview, conducted in Clinton's home outside New York City, showed the former nominee apparently still uncomfortable with what happened in last year's election - and admitting she was unprepared for the conditions in the United States that led to Trump's victory.

'But I don't think it was determinative, ' Clinton argued. Am I the person that people can trust in the end to make hard decisions? I'm proud of my supporters, but I'm the president of all Americans, ' " she said.

"And so there I was on the platform, you know, feeling like an out of body experience", she said.

"The forces that were at work in 2016 were unlike anything that I've ever seen or read about", she said. And, you know, my share of Chardonnay.

Clinton said the "most important of the mistakes" she made "was using personal email", and that she "missed a few chances" during her campaign. She also calls her paid speeches to Wall Street banks bad "optics". I was just gobsmacked.

Clinton then called Trump to congratulate him on being elected and followed that up with a call to President Obama. I thought his behaviour, as we saw on the Access Hollywood tape, was deplorable.

"Well, I thought Trump was behaving in a deplorable manner", she explained. "I am done being a candidate", she said. "It didn't matter to them". But there was one person who could help her cope: Bill. "And he turned out to be a very effective reality TV star".

'I was godsmacked, wiped out, ' she said.

HILLARY CLINTON: I think I am good, but that doesn't mean I'm complacent or resolved about what happened.